On 23 March 2019, BCG participated in the 5th World Assembly for Women (WAW) W-20 Summit in Japan, which was kicked off by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. W20 is the global engagement group that makes policy recommendations related to the G20 women agenda.

Miki Tsusaka, BCG’s Senior Partner and Managing Director participated in a panel discussion on the topic of “Closing the Gender Gap for New Prosperity: Enhancing Governance for Women’s Empowerment”.

During the session, she shared BCG Henderson Institute: Center for Macroeconomics’ economic impact assessment of Japan’s gender parity progress showing that Japan increased female employment by 2.5 million, contributing to a 3% increase in GDP between 2012 and 2017. However, significant further gains remain unrealized and would require moving beyond efforts to raise labor force participation to focus systematically on the type of jobs women fulfill.

Other members of the panel were:

• Isabel de Saint Malo de Alvarado — Minister of Foreign Affairs of Panama
• Arancha Gonzalez — Executive Director International Trade Center
• Ai Hua Ong — Chairman of Janssen Asia Pacific
• Satoshi Tanaka — EVP Mitsui & Co.

For further information regarding the 5th WAW/W20 Summit please visit the official website here.